Take a coffee break with City of Asylum’s Executive Director, Andrés Franco, in a new series of online chats called Coffee with Andrés.

Coffee is a central part of Andrés’s Colombian heritage and is one of his great passions. Coffee has stimulated conversation and ideas for hundreds of years, and coffeehouses have always been havens for free expression. Now Andrés is creating his own online coffee salon for the City of Asylum community.

Coffee with Andrés sessions feature conversations with writers and musicians, activists and artists, discussing their work and sharing a cup with Andrés—and with you.

This second installment's featured guest is Ethiopian writer Bewketu Seyoum. From 2019-21, Bewketu was a writer in residence at City of Asylum. He is currently a research scholar at the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center at George Mason University.

During the program, Bewketu shares with us about his residency in Pittsburgh and now living in DC, reads two poems he wrote during quarantine (May You See it in Your Life and New Years Greetings), and tells us about his upcoming books. And you will be able to watch a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony involving roasting coffee beans over coals, grinding them with a mortar and pestle, and brewing it using a clay pot.

Bewketu Seyoum is an Ethiopian writer, poet, essayist, and entertainer. Honored as Ethiopian Best Novelist of the Year in 2008 and Best Young Author in 2009, he is widely regarded as one of the leading poets of his generation and is well-known for his writing and comedic performance. He has published seven books, including short stories, poetry, novels, and essays in Amharic. Bewketu frequently uses humor in his work to broach politically and socially taboo subjects rarely aired in the Ethiopian public sphere. His writing has been published in English translation by Callaloo, The Poetry Review, World Literature Today, Prairie Schooner, Sampsonia Way Magazine, and Modern Poetry in Translation. Bewketu was a Research Fellow at Brown University from 2015-2016 and an ICORN Writer-in-Residence at City of Asylum Pittsburgh from 2019-2021. While in residence at City of Asylum, Bewketu published two books: Adamel, a book of poems in Amharic, and Cantique de la Nuit, a book of poetry in French translation from Editions Dumerchez. He is currently in residence at George Mason University’s Alan Cheuse International Writer’s Center.

Coffee with Andrés & Bewketu